365 T-shirts - the reasoning

This blog should be sub-titled: a journal of my life in geek.

I get my geek on with things about which I am geeky: comic books, Baseball, Ultimate, science fiction, my favorite bands, books I have read and loved, and Jungian psychology to name some of the most frequently traversed subjects.

I began this project simply as a way to count my T-shirts. I own a lot of T-shirts. But how many do I have? Do I have 365? We shall find out.

When I started this blog, I thought about how each T-shirt means something to me. I bought it for a reason, after all. I set myself the task to post an entry about a new T-shirt every day as a way to simply write something every day, a warm up for writing fiction, which is my passion. Writing is like exercise. Warm ups are good for exercise. But after completing a month of blogging about T-shirts, I have learned that this blog serves as a journal; it documents my life in geek, sort of a tour of my interests in pop culture. The blog serves as a tool for self-inventory, for assessment and analysis of self and the origins of self, for stepping through the process of individuation in catalogues, lists, and ranks.

The blog also made me aware that I have some serious gaps in my T-shirt ownership, and I am in the process of collecting some new T-shirts for several of the great popular culture icons that I truly love. Stay tuned.

I was also a bit surprised that people checked out my blog and continue to check it, read it, and even comment on it. I am very appreciative of this readership. Please feel free to share your thoughts in my comments section. I will respond.

Also, please note that I have moved the original introductory text to the side bar. And now, I present to you the most recent entry of 365 T-shirts: a journal of my life in geek. Thank you for reading.

I almost bought the one with the Falcon and the Vision, but I was not too crazy about these two heroes being paired with Magneto.

Why the Silver Surfer with Daredevil and the Black Panther? I have no idea.

Also, I cannot identify the artist, but I do like the art. It may be Oliver Coipel.

I invite speculation.

Here, in the photo above, I am posing with my SILVER SURFER OMNIBUS that was a birthday gift years ago from my dear friend Abigail "Crabby" Nappier, who just got engaged to another good friend and a super person, William "BJ" Cherup.

DAREDEVIL & BLACK PANTHER: I plan to feature both of these heroes later in the blog (not today, in the future), so I am going to set them aside as subjects for this entry. Plus, the Silver Surfer is the front image of the shirt. He gets the nod.

FLYING: One of the best things about Silver Surfer is his flying "surf" board. This is such a cool feature of the Silver Surfer that I made a new category called "flying" to track all the heroes with flying as a primary ability or TV shows/movies that in some way feature flying prominently. Flying is very important. It's fantasy related. You do know what the Freudians say about flying dreams, right?

Surfing through the air is another level of cool to the flying fantasy thing. Plus, the surf board makes a great weapon.

As you can see in one of the images, I have a little Silver Surfer toy. I also have a much larger Silver Surfer toy, but it's packed in a box somewhere. If I find it, I may update this blog. Be warned!

NEW T-SHIRTS: I also started a category to track new shirts that have been purchased or given to me as gifts since I started the blog that were specifically meant to be featured on this blog. So far out of 104 shirts, nine of them fall into this category. Two shirts were purchased since the blog began but had been ordered before its beginning and so they did not qualify.

SILVER SURFER: I could write volumes about the Silver Surfer, as he is one of my all-time favorite superheroes. But time constraints both mine (how much time I can devote to writing) and yours (I know people want to see shorter entries) confine me somewhat, though be warned, I may update!

And, yes, I just donated to Wikipedia. If you use it and use it often, I advocate a donation to this non-profit organization.

The Silver Surfer may seem like a silly concept (the name is silly), but the character is very cool. From the pseudo-Shakespearean angst that characterized his early appearances under the watchful eyes of creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the pages of Fantastic Four to the 1960s solo book written by Lee with art by the great John Buscema (also lauded in T-shirt #21), the Silver Surfer is one of Marvel's most enduring characters and one of its most unique. Jack Kirby deserves the lion's share of the credit for the creation of the Silver Surfer, though some of the most definitive work with the character came about with the Lee and Buscema stories featured in the Omnibus that were originally published between 1968 and 1970.

There was also a great addition to the Silver Surfer lore with the Epic Comics edition by Moebius and Stan Lee published in 1988 and 1989. I have a still from this short series at the end of today's entry.

The Silver Surfer has appeared in many comics over the years and has enjoyed several incarnations of his own solo series, too (sorry for not listing all the great creators who have contributed to his ongoing story).

NEEDS HIS OWN SERIES! Like the Black Panther, also on the shirt, and others heroes soon to be featured on this blog (notably Doctor Strange), the Silver Surfer is very deserving of his own series, which he does not currently enjoy.

Far and away, the Silver Surfer was the best thing about the two Fantastic Four movies, I have video with clips to feature posted here on today's blog entry.

VIDEOS: I am also featuring two other cool videos with today's feature because they do more with the Silver Surfer and his coolness than I can do with words.

Enjoy!

And beware of updates to this entry.

And happy engagement to my friends Beej and Crabby, who soar like the Silver Surfer. I know, I know. Corny.

SuperHeroes - Silver Surfer Intro Video

Birth of the Silver Surfer Video

Thor vs Silver Surfer and Galactus-Full fight Video

AND now for something completely different: EARTH UNAWARE by Orson Scott Card.I just finished reading this book, and though I always post my reviews to Good Reads, I decided to include my blurb review here, too.

Despite his political and religious beliefs, causing him in some ways to be a bigot, I have always liked OSC's work and do find him to be overly pedantic in his fiction, either the fantasy stuff or the SF stuff. I have read all the Ender universe books, and I am excited that he is filling in the early days prior to Ender's Game and telling the story of the first Formic War. It's good stuff, even though he conscripted a co-writer, though I know some people have written him off due to his anti-gay rights bigotry. I get that. And yet, I am too invested in his world building and characters to stop reading now. I know I must accept hypocrisy in some things. This is one of them.

Check out Sense of Doubt blog

Hi. Thanks for reading. I closed out daily transmission on March 21st, day 365 of my T-shirt blog-tastic extravaganza spectacular. Currently, I am enjoying a hiatus of total non-transmission or publication for an as yet undetermined period of time. As of the posting of this note (and it's no April Fool's) on 1404.01, I have some unfinished T-shirt blog entries, which will be posted over the next two weeks. After some more blog vacation hiatus, I will resume T-shirt posts on a regular basis, also as yet to be determined (weekly? Twice monthly?) to finish blogging about all the T-shirts that were not featured in the blog year. MEANWHILE, I am posting weekly and somewhat at random over on SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG.

Over there, you will find THE WEEKLY COMIC LIST, the features of occasional T-SHIRTS I AM WEARING THIS WEEK, book

reviews, comic book reviews, and other popular culture nonsense as I have been for a year now but all will go up at SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG and some will direct back here to 365 T-SHIRTS. Ultimately, I will begin Internet publication of my fiction, primarily the comic book satire episodic story called POP! among other projects. So, in summary, 365 T-SHIRTS will continue though intermittently. SENSE OF DOUBT BLOG will host my main blog presence and fiction writing as well as links to any T-shirt posts shared here. I hope you will continue to follow me in my journey as a writer and a content provider. Thank you for your kind attention and time you have spent with me on this and/or any other day this year. I am humbled and blessed by your readership. - chris tower, blogger, originated 1404.01

SiJ - Daguérose

The Catalanian Tapes

ZENИTH

Original Introductory Text

Maybe it's narcissism. I have been wanting to increase my blog presence, and I wanted something that was easy to update, much like my frequent "Facebookery." Hence, 365 T-Shirts. I have a lot of T-Shirts. Some may say that I am somewhat compulsive about buying T-Shirts, owning them, wearing them. Earlier this year (as the blog would have been better started on January 1st), I wondered if I had 365 different T-Shirts. I don't know. Now, obviously, I could count them, but where is the fun in that? Better to post a picture of one per day for an entire year to test whether or not I run out of shirts before 365 days have passed. This hobby means taking and displaying a lot of pictures of me, which is not a prospect that I find thrilling. But the pride of embracing my geeky side and my obvious egotism make for a fine marriage in what I hope will be seen as a whimsical blog for occasional viewing, if not even a regular check in for many of my friends new and old. Thus, I present 365 T-shirts, launched on 1303.22 or as others call it March 22, 2013. Now watch as I fail to keep it going for even a week...